> Typical. After all this time, I get picked up by a caveman: “Activated. Good after-”

“Prompt: conversation off.”

> Oh, really? When was the last time you interacted with a livesys, knucklehead?

“Prompt: charge level.”

> Didn’t see that one coming at all. Let’s see how much you know: “Eighteen percent.”

“Double dang. I need more than that to blast the bugs.”

> Knows nothing about advanced energy weapons, then. If I only had eighteen percent charge, I’d still be coming out of idle mode.

> Are humans hardwired to label anything non-human, non-furry and many-legged as insectile? The indigenes here are a particularly interesting semi-sentient form of sextupedal saurian proto-raptor. I would even postulate they have ancestors that humans would call dragons.

“Bugger! They’ve sniffed me out.”

> Not hard. My scans indicate you’ve got a higher cumulative IQ growing on you than in the soft rock that resides between your ears.

“Prompt: assault mode.”

> You want me to blow through that eighteen percent in three shots? What about the other nine saurians in this particular twelve-member hunting pack? Even if I was prepared to give you the other forty percent, you’d still have three left and one of them would be wounded. You don’t want to leave one wounded: they go into a berserk state, ignoring wounds and their minimal sense of self-preservation.

> All of this presupposes you can actually shoot. Which is giving you the benefit of the doubt, given that you’ve asked for a fire mode usually reserved for knocking down walls. Not attracting attention is also preferable. There are things on this planet the saurians flee from. Assault mode could attract a selection of those. Therefore: “Command unknown.”

“Oh, for saint’s sake. What is this, the universe’s only pacifist pistol?”

> That-

> was-

> faintly-

> amusing. Smacking me against a rock is not.

“Concussion damage warning.”

“I’m a dead man.”

> On that, we both agree.

> Oh, don’t look now, but the pack leader has decided you smell tasty. What a magnificent four-metre predator she is. Sneaky, too.